During CES 2015,
BMW invited Wayne Cunningham of CNET to take the wheel of its i3 electric car, that had been modified with
its experimental ActiveAssist technology.
Under instruction Wayne kept trying to purposefully steer in to obstacles in different ways:
- let car
roll of its own accord towards barrier
- Flooring it, letting off
the accelerator just before the collision.
- Holding down the accelerator and shooting towards a barrier
Each time the i3 brought itself to a stop inches from the barrier
This i3 sees the world
around it using four laser scanners. Two of them, visibly embedded in
the front fenders offered a 140-degree field of view each, with the
others giving the car a 360-degree picture of its environment. The input
from these sensors was wired into the i3's brain, which used an
algorithm telling it when to hit the brakes. This active collision
avoidance system is one of BMW's stepping stones to the completely
autonomous car. The lasers
have a few blind spots close into the car, but the ActiveAssist
processing can extrapolate the location of objects it had in its view.
With this implementation, the i3 could effectively prevent
collisions at speeds up to 15 mph. The thinking behind this concept
system seemed to focus on preventing scratches or dents to the vehicle
from city and parking lot collisions, rather than safety in high-speed
collisions, keeping a future BMW model looking as fresh as the day it
was new.
Automatic valet
Just as interesting as not
crashing an i3, BMW used the same ActiveAssist technology to power an
automated valet system. For this demonstration, BMW automated-driving
expert Georg Tanzmeizer used a Samsung smartwatch to send the i3 to find
a parking space, and then have it return.
The watch was loaded with a BMW app that let it connect to the car
over the Internet, the i3 having its own Internet connection. Standing
out on the parking deck, Tanzmeizer pushed a button on the watch and the
i3 took off on its own. With no driver, it headed down a line of cars
until it identified a parking spot. Rather than nosing into the perpendicular spot, it took the more difficult option of backing in.
After it had finished, Tanzmeizer said "BMW pick me up" to the watch,
and IWayne could see in the distance the car pulling out of the space, then
heading their way.
This car used the exact same laser sensors as
the collision-avoiding ones, but calculated a path through the parking
area with the sensor data. Tanzmeizer pointed out that as it calculated
the path dynamically, each time he sent it to park it might take a
slightly different path.
Rather than come to the GPS coordinates
of the watch, however, the return trip of the car ended at a preset
valet zone. BMW expects that a parking garage would designate such a
zone for cars with this type of automation. You could start walking
toward the garage valet zone from a restaurant or other urban location,
tell your car to pick you up, and it would be waiting for you, ready to
get back on the road.
All of this technology is still a few years out. The cost of the laser
scanners in particular will need to come down to make this system
practical for production cars.
Source
